nothing knew

Can't even write a decent poem any more
that's how low I've fallen
not a sonnet or a ballad
not an ode or a tanka
not an elegy or an idyll
not even a haiku or a limerick.

But I'm not too low to have forgotten
my mother's commanding reprimand
that if you've got nothing nice to say
then say nothing.

And I've got nothing nice
nor even horrible
I'm fresh out of bleak
can't afford despair
and as for cruelty and madness...
well, I seem to have forgotten
how to relish and savour
those rich dark flavours.

So what's to be done?
What's to be said?
What's to be thought?
Under the sun
buried and dead
learned but not taught?
Nothing. Knew.

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